


A Way to Keep Warm

by DerKnochenbrecher



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: M/M, if canon doesn't care about timelines then neither do I, plot what plot?, regency makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 11:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DerKnochenbrecher/pseuds/DerKnochenbrecher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's late in a year without summer, and Anton is cold. Larrikin has some ideas about how to fix this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Way to Keep Warm

From the summers of previous years to a winter cold enough to cause wallpaper to crack and peel. The time between seasons was getting shorter, or so it seemed to Anton. He was sitting next to the small coal fire in a borrowed room, trying to get warm, watching as falling snowflakes caught his eye, reflecting the firelight through the glass. His neck was cold – he had been wearing a cravat most of the day, but had removed it as soon as he could. It had felt like it was strangling him.

 

Looking over the length of silk, which he had wrapped around his hand out of habit, he frowned. Had there even been much of a summer that year? It was still early in the year for snow. He had heard talk of famine back in Ireland as the crops failed, what had grown without washing away being quickly killed by early frosts. So perhaps there hadn’t been a summer at all this year. It wasn’t like him to lose track of time. Perhaps the incessant traveling – the incessant _fighting_ – had wearied him to the point of doing so.

 

He tilted his head against the moulding on the side of the fireplace. Over the crackling of the flames, he could hear voices from elsewhere in the building, carried by the timbers of the structure and aided by the fact that his comrades were, for the most part, the loud sort. At least here, he could avoid being surrounded by people. Love his comrades though he did, constantly being around people grew tiresome. It gave the gist strength, but that didn’t mean Anton had to subject himself to it when unnecessary. And since they were supposed to be on something like leave, Anton figured it was acceptable for him to stay out of the main party. Besides, an evening of declining any hard liquor would doubtlessly only serve to annoy those around him.

 

Though perhaps it would have been smart to steal Ghastly or Erskine away. They would have been able to keep the fire going strong. Anton pulled himself up, noting how his joints popped from the cold and stiffness, and shoveled in more coal. The little shovel, looking even smaller in his hands, was cold enough to leave his palm red. He probably should have used his cravat as insulation, instead of throwing it so carelessly onto the bed.

 

The floorboards in the hallway creaked, the latch pushed up and the door opened. Larrikin, carrying a wooden tray with two earthenware cups on it, smiled at him. He obscured most of the weak light that fell through the hallway from some unseen source.

 

“How you doing?” he asked.

 

Anton shrugged, going back to his seat, and Larrikin walked in and set the tray down on the floor before sitting across from him.

 

“I brought you some tea. I thought you could use it,” he said. “You know, you’d be warmer with a blanket.”

 

“It would have been a bother,” Anton replied.

 

Larrikin glanced over to the bed, whose multiple blankets were currently hidden from view by the pile of armour and clothing they had both dumped there earlier that day. He pushed himself up from the floor and laid the armour out next to the bed, carefully so as not to chip the floorboards.

 

“I’d hate to have to put those on right now,” he said. “They’re _freezing_.”

 

“If we needed to wear them, we would not notice,” Anton pointed out. “Besides, this winter will not be as cold as that year the Seine froze.”

 

“I wasn’t with you all then.” Larrikin selected the thickest of the blankets and pulled it out, making a mess of the other sheets. “But I remember that. But yer right – if we can see the stars, it probably won’t be the same mess. With our people or among the mortals. That might keep it calmer for us.”

 

He smiled at Anton. His pale skin seemed even whiter in the firelight, eyelashes practically glowing. His freckles were the only stars Anton needed to see.

 

He sat down next to Anton, wrapping him in the blanket without removing his arm from Anton’s shoulders afterward and cuddling against his side.

 

“What did you do that for?” Anton asked. He reached out and pulled the corner of the blanket away from the fireplace, so they wouldn’t accidentally set themselves and the building on fire.

 

He felt Larrikin shrug.  “You looked chilled. You still do, in fact.” Larrikin placed a hand against Anton’s cheek, and Anton could feel how cold his own skin was when compared to something warmer.

 

“I’m sure I’ll warm up like this,” he said. More so than the blanket, Larrikin’s weight and warmth were reassuring, like a bed warmer that was also good for cuddling.

 

Larrikin slipped an arm around his waist, holding him as close as their positions would allow, and laid his head in the crook of Anton’s neck. But staying still wasn’t something Larrikin was especially good at. The tip of his nose was cold as he ran it along the line of Anton’s shirt collar, where the cloth met skin. Then he started kissing Anton’s neck, and Anton very nearly pulled away.

 

“What are you doing?” he asked, aware that his face was bright red. He turned to avoid Larrikin’s gaze, only glancing back when Larrikin answered him.

 

“Warming you up,” he said. His grin was wicked, showing teeth. Teeth that he began to run along the exposed tendon of Anton’s neck. “Do you want me to stop?”

 

He was speaking softly, but his breath tickled Anton’s skin and his hand brushed across Anton’s stomach as he began to undo the buttons on his waistcoat. It was suddenly easier for Anton to breath. This sort of fashion wasn’t much made for men like him.

 

“The tea will go to waste,” he said, turning so Larrikin could access his throat.

 

“Eh, we can always get more later.”

 

Larrikin kissed him again, harder, sucking and doubtlessly leaving marks.

 

“True,” Anton replied. He hugged Larrikin to him, caress the back of his neck and the bumps of his spine. Larrikin’s hair had gotten long again, and Anton gently tugged out the ribbon keeping up his curls and ran a hand into the roots of his hair. He twisted his fingers in.

 

Larrikin kept kissing him, along his throat and jaw, pulling Anton’s hair loose in return with the hand he wasn’t using to keep himself up. Anton realised he was wearing too many layers of clothing for this, even though the point had been to warm up. He didn’t want to take his hands off Larrikin for that long, though.

 

“Wait,” he said, and Larrikin pulled away, tilting his head slightly. “At least let me get my waistcoat off.”

 

Larrikin sat back, watching him bemusedly.

 

“What?” Anton asked. He tossed the constricting article to the side.

 

“Oh, nothing,” Larrikin replied. “I just like to watch you undress.”

 

Anton looked away, not sure how to respond to that as the redness in his face returned. Larrikin laughed, trying to muffle the sound with one hand, and Anton glanced back, looking over Larrikin’s dress. He must have paused in undoing the tiny buttons of his shirt, though, because Larrikin met his eyes again.

 

“What do you think of my clothes?” he asked.

 

Anton looked them over. “They are nicer than your Necromancer robes, if nothing else.” So much black on really suited him when it was their armour. The whites and browns he was wearing now made him look – happier.

 

“Is that really what you wanted to say? Because I was thinking something along the lines of, “they would be nicer on the floor.””

 

“Maybe they would,” Anton said, allowing himself a small smile.

 

Larrikin busied himself with undoing the buttons of his tailcoat, and Anton took the momentary reprieve to shed his own top. He also pushed the tea cups off to the side, where they were less likely to be knocked over. It wasn’t their fault they were taller than the people this room – and the whole building, really – had been designed for. The fact that they weren’t using the bed was, though before Anton could suggest they start doing that, Larrikin wrapped his arms around Anton’s neck and began kissing the length of his collarbone. Anton decided that staying where he was really wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

 

He ran a hand down Larrikin’s back, brushing against knots of muscle and bone beneath his skin. Larrikin shivered as Anton traced delicate lines between the freckles clustered like wings from the base of his spine up and across his shoulders. There was less of them than in the summer months, and this year’s endless rains and cold had kept them from increasing as they usually did. Anton kept his other hand in Larrikin’s hair, both to guide him and because Anton knew he liked it.

 

Larrikin kissed him, on the lips this time, and Anton didn’t want him to stop. He did though, pulling back slightly and running a hand down Anton’s ribs, looking at him through half-lidded eyes.

 

Anton tilted his head so he was looking at Larrikin straight on. “Is there something wrong?”

 

“Hm?” He stopped stroking Anton’s chest. Not moving entirely was still beyond him, though, so instead he started curling a strand of Anton’s hair around a finger. “No. I was just wondering… Were you still cold?”

 

Anton smiled again, closing his eyes for a brief moment. Somewhere above them and to the side, the window glass was growing flowers of frost. He could hear the fire crackling and Larrikin’s breathing, measured and so close. “I think I might still be.”

 

He could feel Larrikin smile against his skin. “Then please – let me take care of that for you.”

 

“Please do.”


End file.
